Remember the show Malcolm in the Middle? You know, before Brian Cranston was a psychotic meth head and back when he was just a suburban dad trying to make ends meet while honing his speed walking career…

Regardless of whether you remember it, there’s this excellent line that Reese, older of the middle two brothers, had in one episode that my friend and former roommate Steph and I (Steph-and-I… Steph-an-ie… Stephanie…) just adored that went a little something like this:

“My God. Women are the cows of people.”

As I chatted with my cousins-in-law this afternoon (because Seth’s cousin Meg says she and I are cousins-in-law, and Gary and Holly are Seth’s cousin and Seth’s cousin’s wife, respectively, so by extension, also cousins-in-law to me…), I realized how very true that is. Gary, the Gary of Gary’s Dairy in Halder, WI, was super inquisitive about my IVF drugs, you see… because it’s the same stuff he gives his ladies. And all of his ladies (with the exception of the lovely Holly and their crazy baby girl Ella) are cows.

My God. Women are the cows of people.

I mean, of course they are on account of bull : cow : : man : woman (thank the good lord I never have to take the SAT again), but the fact that me and the cows are kinda doing the same dang thing? Well. That was something.

Perhaps if I mosey my way into a stanchion, Gary can give me a hand with some of the injections…

So, yeah, all that to say… July has begun, and so has IVF. It’s been super stressful and emotional and crazy already. I won’t bore you with the details, which have been stressful and emotional and crazy really only to me (what do you mean you’re not shipping one of my drugs, pharmacy?! also… I got super defensive during a mandated appointment with a clinical psychologist and made Seth very uncomfortable), but no matter, it has started.

On Sunday, I took my last birth control pill. On Tuesday morning, I got up at 4:00 am and drove to Madison for my baseline ultrasound and blood work. Tomorrow morning, I start injecting myself with some stuff. And on Saturday evening, I add more stuff. Four injections a day plus lots and lots of ultrasounds until they tell me to use what I can only describe as “the big needle” to deliver a trigger shot (go eggs go!!) and then surgery. They say I can expect headaches first, then bloating, then hot flashes and tiredness and moodiness and breakouts (and probably freakouts) and so on until the week of the 19th when I have surgery to retrieve the eggs my body is supposed to be cooking up. Followed by fertilization, implantation, and the dreaded two-week-wait.

That stanchion, a nice pile of hay and oats right in my face, access to water ad libitum… it’s all looking pretty good right now. Better than living real life around all of the above, don’t you think? I wonder if Gary has some space… moo?

But, I guess, in that respect at least, I’m not a cow. And I have a lot more control, a lot more space to emote, and significantly more complex responsibilities (p < 0.05).

Dang.

The craziest part of it all is the uncertainty. I don’t know how I’m going to feel or how I’m going to react and I’m not super great at dealing with uncertainty or with feelings. So. There’s that. Also, I tend to be very black and white with myself — I’m either doing awesome or suck, suck, suck at everything, which leaves very little room for grace.

So what to do about all of that? I don’t really know. I can’t run (original title of this post: Fat Girl Walking, but I’m gonna go ahead and save that for another day) or do yoga. I have been spending a lot of time eating lactose and being sorry for it later, but I suspect that’s also a bad plan and maybe even some sort of subconscious punishment for not doing as well as I want to be doing. But I am trying (trying) to do some productive and healthy things — I read Brene Brown, I subscribed to Headspace and practice mindfulness, I listen to Dean Koontz books while taking long long walks around town, I keep a gratitude journal, I read Shauna Niequist’s Savor over breakfast every morning, and perhaps most importantly, I sometimes find the strength to say these words:

And I smiled even though I was scared and sad and this is hard. Where “this” refers to IVF, not the horse’s genitalia. Obviously.

This afternoon, I had a meeting with a child and adolescent psychologist. It was a legit work meeting, not actually a therapy session (as I’m neither child nor adolescent), but the psychologist I was talking to went through IVF herself and knows about my deal so we spent the first couple minutes talking about that. Free therapy — woot woot! Seriously though, my favorite thing she always says is that despite all she went through (and it was a lot), if she could go back, she wouldn’t change a thing. Not a single thing. Not the procedures, the dollars, the injections, the travel, the stress… nothing. She says that every step was necessary for the next step and that she learned something every day and that it was all worth it.

Come to think of it, even though I don’t have what I so desperately want, the thing that’s supposed to make it all worth it, (yet), I already kind of agree. Every day I am better at handling the unexpected. At appreciating my strength. At giving myself grace, patience, respect. At giving my body grace, patience, respect. I appreciate better the complexity of fertility and family and adulthood. I am more empathetic and sympathetic. In spite of it all, I am growing and learning and playing the hand I have been dealt. July is for IVF. It’s a chapter, a lesson, a small piece of what will ultimately be my narrative. It’s a scary, sad, hard piece. It’s a piece a cow wouldn’t have to deal with. But I am only like a cow, not an actual cow.

Moo, anyway… and hand me that syringe, I’ve got some injections to do.

I get lots and lots of sleep. So so so much sleep. Not because I go to bed early or because I turn off all electronics an hour before bed or have a great bedtime ritual or anything. Nope. None of those good things.

I get a ton of sleep for one reason only… because I am terrible at waking up. Terrible!

My favorite place… bed.

Always have been, probably always will be. It’s ridiculous. Ask my husband. He hates it. It’s not even a snooze problem. It’s a shut-the-alarm-off-and-go-completely-back-to-sleep-without-even-realizing-the-alarm-ever-sounded problem. (Or wake-up-imagining-I-overslept-at-3:18-am-and-immediately-jump-panicking-into-the-shower-only-to-emerge-squeaky-clean-and-painfully-exhaustingly-ridiculously-early problem, granted that occurs less often these days.)

Over the past month or so, believe it or not, my inability to wake up has gotten even worse, but not for the normal (non-)reason. This time, it’s because even though I’m sleeping (for hours and hours and hours, as I said above), I’m still exhausted. Exhausted from some seriously vivid dreams. Mundane, but vivid.

So ridiculously vivid that I’m legitimately unsure at times if something is a real memory… or if it was just a dream. I literally cannot tell. And it’s freaking me out.

My depression is no secret, of course. We’ve talked about it before. Sometimes I feel down, really really down, and talking about it often makes me feel embarrassed, but it’s part of me and I do myself and others a disservice if I fail to tell the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, except for humorous embellishment, so help me God. So I should probably mention this little bump in the road as well.

True story: a friend who recently discovered my blog says I have to come down off my pedestal now. Fair enough. 🙂

I have dealt with depression, off and on (except I think we know that it’s always really “on” in some capacity or another) since I was relatively young. As part of treatment, I have been on a number of different anti-depressant medications. The tricky thing about antidepressants is that they 1) take a while to work, 2) work differently for every individual, and 3) there’s no great way to know a) which one is going to work or b) what the exact side-effect profile, if any, is going to look like for you personally.

Most recently, I switched medications after a side-effect of the one (in me, specifically, of course) proved itself to be dramatic weight gain. And when I say dramatic, I mean it. Like 10-pounds-in-a-single-week dramatic. I could see that, I could feel that, but so could my prescriber. So after giving it some time (and a lot of pounds) we switched to something else. It’s been smooth sailing for a good six months or so. Maybe closer to a year. And then all of the sudden…

The dreams.

For the most part, I can deal with side-effects in a rational manner. I’ve dealt with dry mouth and weight gain, jitters and minor insomnia. Little things that I can see, attribute to the medication, and say, “but it’s worth it because the depression is at bay.”

Oh so worth it.

I tried to do the same thing for the dreams.

It’s just a dream. So you’re a little tired, have some tea. No big deal, you’re still getting lots and lots of sleep, as per usual.

Until I couldn’t. Because I’m too afraid of crazy. And this feeling? This feeling is crazy. Not ha ha, you craaaazy. Or you think I’m crazy? Whatevs. More along the lines of crap, this might be legitimately crazy. The uh oh one.

To not be able to tell what’s real… that’s too much.

So I went to see my prescriber one early morning this week. I got out of bed, quicker than usual, because she’s just the best, best, best. So good at simultaneously laughing at my jokes (because humor is generally how I deal and acknowledging that I’m funny is basically the best compliment a person can give me) while also taking me and my reports of the symptoms that are concerning me seriously. More clinicians could learn from the brilliant Celeste, I think. (Plus, she has an excellent name. Kudos to her parents.)

We’ve got a plan of action and a plan for ongoing communication about the symptoms. I’m tired, the dreams probably won’t go away immediately, but I do feel a sense of relief just knowing that the crazy (the scary kind) can be controlled, prevented, addressed, whatever. Thank goodness.

The thing that was most interesting to me in this instance is that I’ve frequently felt crazy in the first two ways I described. The ha ha way– I mean, this hair, right? It certainly has an air of crazy about it (that’s the frizz). And even the, oh, right, you think I’m crazy– whatevs, kind. I have tummy troubles and a weird case of hand eczema that I believe to be associated with gluten. Doctors don’t believe me. They think I’m crazy. Whatevs.

But being called crazy, even by a medical professional (implied only, granted I haven’t actually read my chart), frustrating as it may be, is not, in fact, scary like this is scary. That’s what this kind of crazy felt like.

And paradoxically, that actually makes me feel kind of proud. Because it means that I am trusting my body. Trusting my own symptoms and my own intuition to know when something is real, regardless of whether it is recognized.

I know that there is something wrong with my gastrointestinal system. I can work with it sometimes, but not all the time. A diagnosis of we-don’t-know-you-must-be-crazy (anyone know the ICD-9 code for that???) is not helpful, exactly, but I can live with it. I can work with it. I can continue to trust my body and keep trying to calm it down however I can. Likewise, with the eczema on my hands and feet, I see a link with gluten and flares. Yes, there are other things too– stress and hot weather and travel all seem to play a role, but not if I stay away from gluten. So I stay away from gluten, and the doctor says I’m crazy for it, but that’s ok.

Not this time though. This time, crazy is not ha ha. It’s not whatevs. It’s scary. And I trusted myself to know that I needed to seek professional medical help. I have a good relationship with Celeste, I trust her and get the sense that she trusts me to report accurately. She worked with me, with my crazy, to make a plan. I can get on board with that too.

Annoying as it may be (because in my dreams last night, I simply could not understand how my math professor was working out the problems and I was never going to pass– a new story every night), I am encouraged by my ability to trust myself, even in my crazy, to be able to distinguish just what type of crazy it was. When the push for help is not only meaningful, but necessary. And I’m grateful that Celeste seems to get that too.

(I read something recently that it’s not cool to say “feels” instead of feelings anymore. But I still think it’s funny, so I’m about to use it. You were warned. And, to be honest, you kind of knew I was prone to use of lame words and phrases. It’s what I do.)

I loved this movie because it made me feel ALL the FEELS! All of them– the good ones and the bad ones, the happy ones and the sad ones, the victorious and the defeated, etc, etc, etc. Surprisingly, deliciously, hilarious and delightful! Highly recommend the watch.

Anyway, all of that just to say: I ripped off the title to title my Advent for Thirty post about l-o-v-e love! As promised! And I (almost) always keep my word!

The nice this about these Advent for Thirty posts is that I made some pretty lofty promises without a very concrete plan… incidentally, it ended up being a better advent that way because I actually had to reflect on all those things I promised. Good deal.

So love. Twuuuuu wuv. Thirty years of it, and lots more to come. And because of that… lots to think about. I have to admit, I’m kind of excited about the palindromic nature of my discovery! Who doesn’t like palindromes?!

Go hang a salami, I’m a lasagna hog! Never forget!

But my palindrome… kind of different.

Icky – Scary – Bliss – Scary – Icky

Of course there was lots and lots of love in my life right from the get go. I was my parents’ first child, which means that they’ll always love me best and in the most special way, but that’s not important to discuss right now. (Don’t worry Ab and Tom, I love you enough to make up for mom and dad’s inability to love you as much as they love me… there there.) But seriously, based on how much we all dote on my sweet and perfect niece Emma, I’m pretty certain that I was a very, very well-loved little girl. So that’s cool. But being pre-conscious memory at that point, I was pretty much unaware. (Lame baby…)

Once I finally did become aware of love, I knew I had it for my family. That was a given. I loved them, they loved me, and we always said it (and still do). We never end a phone conversation, walk out the door, or board a plane without saying we love each other. It’s just a thing we do. The end.

But love of other people? Ummmm… no. It was icky. K-i-s-s-i-n-g in trees and cooties and all of that. Icky.

As I got older, boys became interesting and friends were important. But love? Still scary. When I was in high school, for example, there was a guy from the band (I know, right? Very American Pie… band is like that. Stereotypes happen for a reason…) that I dated every year during football season. Pretty much every September through December, without fail. My freshman year, my sophomore year, and my junior year (then he graduated). I always broke up with him around New Years… it suddenly got too scary. The last time, he told me he loved me. I broke up with him the next day. I just couldn’t. Too much… too much! It was all Forrest Gump-like– “you don’t know what love is!” and I had to run and run and run. Whew. Close call. Scary.

But then I went to college. And in 2002, I met Seth. And that… that was not in the least bit scary. That was bliss. Bliss! That was the butterflies of a first date (you guys, he sang in the car while we drove to Watersmeet to see the Paulding Light– humoring my ghost obsession from day one!). That was watching the Northern Lights flicker and fade over Misery Bay and star gazing at Boston Pond. It was young, it was yooper-style (dang I love the UP!), and it was love… Bliss.

And then, things got kind of scary again. Because I really loved this guy. And slowly I realized: this was the man I was going to marry. This was the person I was going to spend my life with, that I was going to build my family around. His was the heart to which my heart would be tethered always. That’s kind of big. Kind of scary.

And that was in like 2004. So fast forward to 2010, we’d been dating for over 8 years, and the fear hit all over again as I thought that maybe, just maybe, grad school had broken me past the point of repair or redemption and Seth wanted out. That was also scary.

Turns out– Seth just gets weird when he has to keep a secret and he was bursting about the engagement ring he had picked out and worried that I suspected something. He always gives me too much credit… I’m oblivious more often than not. So we got engaged. We got married. We went on a honeymoon.

Because I told you this is a palindrome and you’re good at deducing patterns, I’m sure you know what’s coming back now: ICKY.

As lovely as our honeymoon was, it was also very, very icky. My poor new husband, man of my bliss, man of my fear, man of my heart, was sick. Oh so very, very sick. The kind of explosive sick that leaves you desperate for relief, but not sure which end to leave over the toilet. Highly un-romantic. Extraordinarily icky.

But as icky as it was, my heart was broken and I took care of my poor husband as best I could. (We were so lucky that our villa had a washer/dryer!) In sickness and in health, right? Love, real grown-up not scary love, means in sickness, too. This was sickness.

We’ve been home from our honeymoon for a while. We bought a house, we got ourselves a puppy, and now I have a little fur baby to love as though she were human (because yes, I’m one of those people), and love is still kind of icky. Have you ever seen a dog projectile vomit? It’s something spectacular– and I got to clean it up as Seth retched in the background. There’s no way I was going to clean up his vomit too at that point, one pile (pile, smear, disastrous explosion of sick all over my dog, her e-collar, the floor, the kennel, the wall, the closet door) is quite enough, thankyouverymuch. So I asked him to back away.

(Ok, don’t get me wrong– Seth is totally a trooper about cleaning up after Curls vomits– it’s usually not quite so horrifying as it was that night. Can’t really fault him for that.)

And what of love after 30? I imagine it’ll continue to be icky, scary, and blissful, all in turn. It will be shared with my husband, family, friends, co-workers, and pets. And despite any ick or fear, it will undoubtedly be sweet.

And now you know the truth: I am influenced far too much by movies and TV. I’ve confessed to you before that romantic comedies are my absolute favorite and that I refuse to apologize for it. I’m the girl the big movie execs add a love story for (even in Jurassic Park). Sorry about that if you’re not a fan– it was meeeeeeeee!!!

PS: I’m suddenly second guessing myself… this is not really a palindrome, just symmetry. And yet, I’ve gone too far with the palindrome theme to change it now. I’d rather be wrong than go back and change anything. Forgive me, please.

"Rachel V. Stankowski considered herself, among other things, a writer. Primarily due to the positive stigmas that accompanied the label, but also because it seemed to excuse some of her more major eccentricities, vanity included."
My brother, also a writer, wrote that about a fictional character. It might have been about me. So I stole it. He's good; maybe I can be too.